Strange Misquotations

Published:First published inPravdaNo. 84, June 30 (17), 1917.

      Signed:N. Lenin.

      Published according to thePravdatext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1977,

      Moscow,Volume 25,

      page104.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.  

      2002You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

ThenewspapersDyen[2]andNovaya
      Zhizn, which yesterday published a more detailed report of
      the findings of the committee of
      inquiry,[3]have
      quoted a passage from my testimony that is missing inBirzhevka,[4]which in certain respects has
      published an even more complete report of the findings.

Bothof the first-mentioned papers printed a quotation from my
      testimony that begins with the words: “I do not believe
      there are any agents provocateurs involved here.” There are no
      dots before the quotation, and the perfectly absurd inference is
      that now “I do not believe”.

Onlyan extremely strange misquotation by both papers could
      result in such nonsense. What I did testify was this:

      “I personally have oftenhad to(before Malinovsky
      was found to be an agent provocateur) reason as follows: after
      the
      Azef[5]case nothing can surprise me. But I do not believe
      there are any agents provocateurs involved here, not only
      because I see neither proof nor evidence, but also
      because” (and so on, as quoted byDyen: had
      Malinovsky been an agent provocateur, the secret police would
      not have gained as much as they had expected, for we have been
      doing everything through two legal posts, etc.).

Andso, my testimony concerned the past.DyenandNovaya
Zhizn[1]have by a strange misquotation attributed
      to me an absurdity implying that I spoke of the present.

Theresult is the direct opposite of what I actually said.

[1]Bothnewspapers contain another misprint: “The Bolsheviks will
not organise an armed rising.” The wordnotshould be taken out.
—Lenin

[2]Dyen(The Day)—a liberal bourgeois daily newspaper published
in St. Petersburg from 1912. Among its contributors were
Menshevik liquidators, who took it over completely after the February
revolution.Dyenwas closed down by the Military Revolutionary
Committee under the Petrograd Soviet on October 26 (November 8),
1917.

[3]OnJune 16 (29), 1917,Dyen, Novaya ZhiznandBirzheviye
Vedomostipublished the findings of the extraordinary committee of
inquiry appointed by the Provisional Government to investigate
the crimes of the tsarist regime. The committee published evidence
against the agent provocateur Malinovsky.

[4]Birzhevka, short forBirzheviye Vedomosti(Stock-Exchange
Recorder)—a bourgeois newspaper founded in 1880. It was published
in St. Petersburg, first three and then four times a week, and in
the end daily. From 1902 onwards it was brought out twice a day.
Time-serving, venality and lack of principle made its title a byword.
After the February revolution the paper conducted riot-raising
propaganda against the Bolshevik Party and Lenin. It was closed
down by the Military Revolutionary Committee under the
Petrograd Soviet at the end of October 1917.

[5]Referenceis to the treachery of Azef, member of the S.R. Party’s
Central Committee, who for a number of years was a secret police
agent. In 1908 he was exposed, and fled from the country.